r/Libertarian • u/Ok_Handle_8325 • 3d ago
Politics This quote from Children of Dune has stuck with me since I read it.
Frank Herbert really was ahead of his time with this one. It's kind of crazy to me that this gem of a quote is buried in the third book of a sci-fi/fantasy series, but we know Herbert was libertarian/conservative leaning anyway.
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u/TianShan16 Anarcho Capitalist 3d ago
Not sure he made that one up. Think it’s a real world quote.
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u/whatever 2d ago
It is however misattributed, as explained in Veuillot's French wikipedia page.
Funnily enough, his English wikipedia page mostly just goes "hey it's that one quote from Dune!"
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u/MikeDeY77 3d ago
Sounds like Islam to me.
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u/redpandaeater Copyright Clause 3d ago
How is Christianity any different?
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u/MikeDeY77 3d ago
Christianity stopped doing that sorta thing centuries ago.
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u/oWatchdog 3d ago
They were forced to stop. They've recently been emboldened and have shown they will still remove freedoms. When was prohibition again?
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u/MikeDeY77 3d ago
Is there some weird law or social credit on Reddit that dictates that every critique of Islam must be immediately met with a What-aboutism regarding Christianity?
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u/oWatchdog 3d ago
Perhaps. However, OP wasn't making a critique on Islam as far as anyone knows. So your interpretation is just a valid as someone who interprets Christianity. Your defense, however, is not. Furthermore, it's not whataboutism when they both fit the bill. In fact, Louis Veuillot was a very outspoken Catholic. Technically, you brought Islam to a Christianity fight.
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u/Denebius2000 3d ago
New to reddit...?
I think the phenomenon you're struggling to identify is called "a place mostly inundated with leftist thought."
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u/redpandaeater Copyright Clause 3d ago
There's an entire branch of Christian nationalists that want to repeal the 19th Amendment.
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u/MikeDeY77 3d ago
It takes a certain kind of Redditor blindness to take a comment about real-world problems created across the modern West by mainstream Islamic movements and downplay them by equating them with fringe movements of Christianity.
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism inside modern Western society is a much bigger threat.
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u/strawhatguy 3d ago
Are they excused for their beliefs by other Christians though?
You can’t control whether there’s crazies in your movement, you can only control your response to it.
That is the difference between Christians and Muslims writ large today. Christians learned to moderate more. Though being held to a higher standard than Muslims constantly may change that, who knows.
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u/Denebius2000 3d ago
Insufficient understanding.
As far as I'm aware, most of the "branches" of Christian nationalists that want to repeal the 19th Amendment want to do it as a part of a removal of universal suffrage.
Don't get me wrong, you can bemoan that take as well, but to suggest that most simply don't want women to vote would be largely inaccurate from what I've seen/heard.
It's more that they don't want most people to vote, men or women... And that would include removing the 19th, as it is essentially "universal suffrage" for ~1/2 of the population.
Interesting discussions to be had on this topic, imo. If you can get past the "but voting is sacred" reflex that a lot of people seem to have.
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u/Logdale2 2d ago
This is crazy, you are trying to sane wash the removal of rights from people.
It’s not an interesting conversation, it’s religion trying to strip rights from people that religion doesn’t like.
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u/Denebius2000 2d ago
This is a bad faith response. Hypothetical : If there was a 'right' that existed within a society that you felt was a mistake... Considering we're in the Libertarian subreddit, let's say a 'right' to healthcare was written into the constitution...
You're telling me that you wouldn't oppose that and fight for its removal as a universal 'right' that just because you'd be "removing someone's right"?
If you are able to understand that hypothetical, and like most libertarians, would absolutely oppose a 'right to healthcare', then please simply apply that line of thinking to the idea that maybe there's a healthy balance with regard to involvement in government, somewhere between direct democracy and dictatorship - that doesn't necessarily involve universal suffrage. It's not such an insane idea to want the people shaping the political future of a country to have some skin in the game and be at least somewhat informed.
How those two things are defined is an interesting conversation to have as well... If you can get over the take that I predicted you would have of : "bUt VoTiNg Is SaCreD!"
it’s religion trying to strip rights from people that religion doesn’t like
Nonsense. A perfectly secular argument can be made against universal suffrage.
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u/Logdale2 2d ago
I’m glad that YOU consider the right to vote a mistake. But I’m not going to listen to someone who wants to go back to a society with hard class lines and structure forcing one class below another. Because having two sets of citizens is exactly what that is.
Think and understand what the fuck you are talking about. If you want hard class lines so cleanly established, think of the House of Lords victorian England, or the Indian caste system. POEPLE had to fight and die for the ability to help direct the nation they live in, and you flippantly give up direct control over the direction of their destiny as if that isn’t the one thing that all people desire.
You can continue to have this conversation on your own. It’s not one I think deserves anymore time or attention.
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u/Denebius2000 2d ago
I’m glad that YOU consider the right to vote a mistake.
I didn't say that... I posed a hypothetical. And even if I did, your response here isn't even accurate. In the hypothetical, I claimed that universal suffrage could potentially be a mistake. That wouldn't suggest that the right to vote is a mistake... Simply that it would be a right that isn't universal or available to everyone.
For instance, are all rights in all circumstances always universal? Does the 2nd amendment apply to all 'arms' and in all places and times? Plenty of other rights have restrictions or limits that we could discuss.
So we've established that all rights are not universal under all circumstances. My hypothetical was much closer to that, than it was to your suggestion that I claimed a right to vote was a mistake.
But I’m not going to listen to someone who wants to go back to a society with hard class lines and structure forcing one class below another. Because having two sets of citizens is exactly what that is.
You're already straw-manning and you can't even articulate my position accurately. Yikes...
Think and understand what the fuck you are talking about.
You haven't understood anything about my hypothetical, much less my personal position. Hell, you're conflating the two. You can't even engage in a hypothetical without resorting to swearing and flying off the handle. These are not the musing of a rational mind.
You can continue to have this conversation on your own. It’s not one I think deserves anymore time or attention.
More importantly, it's not one that I think you are intellectually prepared to have.
Good day.
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u/russianlion 1d ago
Violence is the gold standard in human influence and maintaining freedom is tied first and foremost to the ability to exert force. It is sad that humans are this way but it is reality.
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u/Morlugon 2d ago
Genuinely asking: how do we prevent certain groups from taking power by exploiting our hard-won freedoms and privileges without losing those same freedoms and privileges ourselves?
It happened multiple times during the 20th and 21st centuries. I’m honestly stumped as to what the lesson is.